


On Hold

by merthurkdramas_101



Category: Merlin (TV), Merlin - Fandom
Genre: Hunith passed away, M/M, arthur works in customer service, is that a thing?, nurse!Merlin, phone meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5790994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merthurkdramas_101/pseuds/merthurkdramas_101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur works as a customer service representative and Merlin calls for help, but after being on hold for so long, he snaps at Arthur. Merlin calls back later to say sorry, but then they get into consistent arguments every time they talk, which leads to one of them hanging up and the other one calling back to say sorry. Happy ending. </p><p>Sorry for the bad summary! I hope you like the story better :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! So, I’m in the process of writing a story that’s quite longer than this one, but I needed a break from it for a little. So here’s this blob! The idea occurred to me because I was on hold for 50 minutes with a customer service phone thing a few days ago, and it really irked me. I ended up hanging up because my mother needed to make a phone call, but the idea hit me and I was like yesssssssss. So yeah! I hope y’all like it! Any kudos or comments are appreciated and my other story will be up hopefully soon! 
> 
> Also PS- I’m so sorry about the sucky title. I suck at titles.
> 
> Disclaimer: Merlin and it's characters do not belong to me, sadly, and I am not being paid to write this. And this is also not beta'd, so if there are any mistakes, please excuse me!

It’s been fifty minutes. FIFTY minutes. Almost a fucking hour. And he’s been on hold listening to the crappiest classical music ever. His ginormous ears are bleeding.

“Merlin! Are you done with the phone yet?” his flatmate, Gwen, yells.

“No! Fucking company put me on hold because ‘all the customer service representatives are busy’ and ‘you have a wait time of 8-10 minutes’. Fuck everything. Let’s just live in an igloo, Gwen. It’d be so much easier than listening to this shit music and waiting for a real person to—”

“Camelot Heating, this is Arthur. How can I help you?”

“Fucking finally! Do you know how long I’ve been on hold waiting to speak to a fucking human?”

“Excuse me, sir, but—”

“Don’t you fucking ‘sir’ me. I’ve been on hold for almost an hour!”

“Well, I’ve been listening to people like you rant all fucking day about how long they’ve been on hold. We’ve been slammed, and listening to another customer rant about how awful our customer service is, is the last thing I want to hear.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo. It’s your job to do that! It’s your job to make people happy about their fucking central heating system. Not complain. You do that over a pint after a long day.”

“Well then, excuse me. I’ve got to go drown myself in alcohol.”

There’s a click, and Merlin just blinks at the phone. 

The words Call Ended stare at him in the face.

“Did he…did he just—” 

He looks at Gwen, who’s staring at him with her mouth wide open.

“What are you looking at me like that for?! He hung up on me! The fucking customer service bastard hung up on me!”

She blinks three times and closes her mouth. “Merlin, I don’t blame him. You were being quite rude.”

“I was being rude? Gwen, he was complaining to me about complaining customers! It’s his fucking job to deal with them!”  
She gives him the same disapproving glare his mother used to give him, and he folds, falling back in the chair he was sitting in. He leans back, arm over his eyes, his knitting falls out of his lap as he brings his feet up onto the chair. Well, there goes his work over the past hour. He was nearly done too.

He sighs and says, “I guess I was kind of rude.” And he can feel Gwen raise her eyebrow.

“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, Merlin. Peak of the time everyone’s coming home. They’re obviously slammed. Poor chap probably just needs a break if he’s been working from 9-5. You’re not working tomorrow, right?” He nods his head. “So call again tomorrow during a less busy time, apologize and ask for help. You know better than that, Merlin.”

And he does. His poor mother worked as a sales representative in a high end department store for most of her life, dealing with high profile and bitchy customers. And every day, she would come back with stories that made Merlin both shake with anger and laughter as he listened to his mother’s tales of how the customer would treat her so rudely, but she would be so polite that they would sometimes just end up walking away because they were mortified at how they were behaving. He vowed on the day she died that he would be understanding and polite as possible with anyone they ever met, because everyone has bad days, and everyone needs a break once in a while.

“I need a drink,” he says.

“Well, I’m going over to Lance’s tonight. Call Gwaine. Maybe he can help you cheer up a bit.”

He takes his arms off of his eyes and smiles at her. She really was too kind. “Thanks, Gwen. Tell Lance I say hi.”

She ruffles his hair on her way out of the door. He stares after her a moment longer, then reaches for his phone and calls Gwaine.

“Merlin! How can I help you today? Shag? Drink? Both?”

Merlin laughs as he hears him cry out in pain. No doubt his boyfriend, Percy, taming him. “No shag, sorry. That position’s already been taken, Merlin.”

“Hey, Percy. How are you?”

“Fantastic, Merlin, thank you. Now, how can we help you?”

“I was actually calling to ask if you both wanted to get pissed. I really need it right now.”

He hears Gwaine say something to Percy and hears Percy murmur something back. “We’ll be at the Great Dragon in 20. See you there?”

“Perfect.”

He goes up to his room, showers and puts on jeans and a hoodie and readies himself for a night of regrets.

********** 

Merlin wakes up the next morning with a really blinding headache, and he vows, for probably the hundredth time, not to go out with Percy and Gwaine. They’d been feeding him shots left and right, and before he knew it, he was in his bed. 

He rolls out of bed and heads for the shower, coming down in only his pajama pants when he sees Gwen and Lance snuggling on the couch, watching a movie. He looks at his phone and finds it’s 11am. 

“Morning, you two.”

“More like good afternoon. I take it you had a good night?” says Lance.

“Oh, it’s only 11. Technically, it’s still morning. And it’s brunch time. Everyone loves a good brunch.”

“Shut up, boys. This is the best part,” Gwen says.

“Gwen, you’ve seen this movie literally 100 times,” Merlin says. He can tell without looking at the screen that they’re watching her favorite movie, Never Been Kissed.

“And yet she still cries as if she hasn’t seen it before,” Lance says.

Merlin laughs as Gwen pummels Lance with a pillow, only to back away into the kitchen when Lance grabs her arms and starts making out with her.

“No sex on the sofa, please!” he yells at them. A pillow hits him square in the face.

He laughs to himself as he makes his way into the kitchen, putting on a pot of coffee. He leans against the counter top, flipping through his phone until he can find Camelot Heating’s number in his Recent Calls list. He sighs. He really doesn’t know what came over him yesterday. True, it’d been a busy few weeks at the hospital, but there really was no reason for why he had an outburst like that. He’s always been really patient with people.

The coffeemaker beeps, so Merlin pours himself a glass and takes the mug up to his room. When he shuts the door, he presses the number, waiting to hear the automated voice drone on about the options he has to pick from. When he finally gets to a customer service representative, which takes surprisingly only 6 minutes, he asks for Arthur.

“Camelot Heating, this is Arthur. How can I help you today?”

“Um, hi. This is Merlin? I…we sort of talked yesterday…well, yelled at each other is probably more accurate.”

“Oh, God. It’s you. Here to file a formal complaint?”

He winces. “Uh, no. Actually I called to apologize. About yesterday. I was kind of being an ass.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“Hey, now just a second. I wasn’t the only one! You could’ve been a little nicer too! And you could’ve not hung up on me.”

He hears Arthur stutter for a bit. “It was your fault!”

“Only because you were bei—” he sighs. This was not going the way he planned. “Look. I just called to apologize, okay? I didn’t mean to go off on you like that.”

“Well, fine. Thanks, I guess.”

“Um, you’re not going to apologize?”

Arthur laughs. “Uh, no. I don’t tend to apologize. Especially when I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Merlin scoffs at that. “Yeah. Right. You’re a prat.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me!”

“Well, at least I’m not an idiot! Who calls and apologizes about something that was clearly their fault and then starts insulting the same person again?”

“You’re being ridiculous! I told you it wasn’t just me!”

“Yeah, well—” and Merlin hangs up. He didn’t need that prat’s reasoning. He was being ridiculous! He apologized, and the least Arthur could’ve done was apologize back. It wasn’t him that was being ridiculous.

He turned off his phone and grabbed his laptop to watch Netflix. He was a nurse with three days off, and this was his first day off this week. It’d been such a chaotic month, and with winter coming around the corner and his heater broken, he just couldn’t deal with another headache. He’d try and fix it later on tonight.

***  
A week passed, and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees, and the heater still wasn’t fixed. Gwen called him out on it.

“Merlin, it’s your responsibility to deal with the heating/cooling system, and basically everything electronic while I do the housework. Please keep up your end. I’m going to be freezing my ass of when the snow hits next month.”

“Oh, come off it, Gwen. You get to stay at Lance’s apartment if it gets to that point.”

She puts her hands on her hip, and God, she really is like a mother. “You know that’s not the point.”

He throws his hands up in the air, surrendering. “Fine. I’ll call him now.”

She smiles proudly then goes back to washing the dishes.

The number looks way too familiar as he dials it and hears the familiar, “Camelot Heating, this is—”

“Arthur, it’s Merlin. Look, can we—”

“They really should block your number.”

“And you really should just listen to me. Don’t you have a boss that like, reprimands you for talking that way to your customers?”

“Actually, I have a soundproof cubicle.”

And Merlin couldn’t help but snort. “You have a cubicle?”

“Yes. Is that so bad?”

“I just can’t imagine you sitting in a small cube. I feel like you should have like, a huge office or something where you yell at people all day.”

“Why, thank you Merlin. Your faith in my ability to become a CEO is really very welcoming.” And the fact that it was the first time Arthur used his name should be that big of a deal. But for some reason, it really was.

“Yeah. Um, right. Look, I actually need help.”

“It’s good of you to mention that. I didn’t want to be rude and point that out to you. I have a friend who’s a therapist that can help you out. Do you want his number?”

“Oh my God, you really are a prat, aren’t you? Fuck off, Arthur.” And he hangs up again.

He’s been in therapy since his mother passed. She died in a car accident and he was in the car with her. It’s been almost 8 months, and and he just recently started accepting the fact that it wasn’t his fault that his mom died and he survived. 

He calls up Gwaine again, not caring about the fact that he has to be at work tomorrow at 7am, and gets as drunk as he did when he ended up in bed with three guys and Gwen. 

He wakes up the next morning naked with a man he doesn’t remember pulling, and he’s in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

***  
He’s on his lunch break the next day when he gets the call.

“Hello?”

“Is this Merlin?”

“Speaking?”

“Um, it’s Arthur.”

He almost hangs up, but Arthur says, “Wait, please don’t hang up.” He sounds sincere and actually concerned, so Merlin reluctantly puts the phone back up to his ear. 

“What do you want?”

“Look, I’m…sorry. I think I went too far yesterday.”

Merlin stays silent.

“I didn’t actually mean you needed help. I was just being a dick. I—I really am sorry, Merlin. My sister keeps telling me I need to stop trying to be funny. It turns out she’s right, unfortunately. Do you want to hear a bad joke?”

“What?”

“A bad joke. Surely you’ve heard of them. Or what their purpose is.”

“Their only purpose is to weed out those with a terrible sense of humor.”

“So you won’t mind if I try it out on you, then?”

“It’s a lost cause. I’ve a terrible sense of humor. I laugh at everything.”

“Great! So you’ll love this one.”

What even was this conversation right now?

“Are you cold? You should probably go into the corner. It’s 90 degrees.”

Merlin really tries not to laugh. He tries so hard that he turns purple. But Arthur’s “90 degrees? Corner? Get it?” tips him over the edge, and he’s on the floor of the cafeteria. In a hospital. Laughing his ass off. 

It takes him a good two minutes to get back into his seat, and another two to reassure everyone that he was alright and not going crazy.

“Good God, you really do have a terrible sense of humor.”

“Hey, you were just apologizing. Don’t ruin it.” And Merlin can’t help but smile, the tension seeping out of their conversation. 

“I would never,” and he can hear the smile in Arthur’s voice.

“I am sorry, though. Really. About what I said. I didn’t really mean it. My best mate is actually in therapy right now, so it really isn’t that big of a deal if you are. Or aren’t! I’m not making assumptions, I just—”

Merlin can’t help but chuckle. “Arthur, it’s fine. I forgive you.”

 

They fall into an awkward silence for a few seconds, but Arthur breaks it when he asks, “I’m asking out of curiosity, are you? In therapy I mean? I’m only asking because you seemed really offended when I said that.”

Merlin sighed. He probably wasn’t even going to meet this Arthur person anyway. Might as well just tell him. “Um, yeah. My mum died about 8 months ago in a car accident. I was with her, but—”

“Shit, Merlin, I’m—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s fine now. I mean, I’m not going that often anymore. I just recently came to terms with it, so…”

“My mother died in childbirth. I never knew her.”

“Arthur, I’m so sorry.”

“I mean it’s been a while. Since I’ve talked about her with my therapist. Mostly now I just talk about my dad and how he disowned me because I didn’t want to take over his company.”

“Arthur, that’s terrible!”

“It is what it is. At least now I can do what I want without feeling like I’m drowning everyday.”

“And…what you want to do is…customer service?”

“Uh, no, but—”

“Because I can tell you right now that you’re not going to make it that far.”

Arthur laughs again. “Shut up, Merlin.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, and Merlin realizes, as he watches a group of nurses get up, that he’s on the phone with a customer service representative talking about their personal problems and how it doesn’t feel strange at all. He hasn’t had many phone conversations with people he doesn’t know, so it’s strange that he can talk to Arthur about all of this like he’s his best friend.

He hears Arthur open his mouth to say something, but his beeper goes off.

“Shit, I have to go. Patient.”

Arthur sounds surprised when he says, “You’re a doctor?”

“Nurse, actually.”

“Oh, so you know all about helping people then.”

“More than you, it seems. I don’t go off on them if I’m having a bad day.”

“Hey, now. I thought we established that it was all your fault that I was a prat.”

“Ah-ha! So you admit it!”

“I—I mean—no! I never said—oh shut up, Merlin.”

Merlin laughs. “I’ll talk to you later, Arthur.”

“Y-yeah. Bye.”

And for some reason, Merlin can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.

***  
It’s been three days since he talked with Arthur, two days since Gwen got sick, and one day since he’s bought an electric blanket. He really needs to get the heating fixed.

“Camelot heating, this is—”

“Arthur.”

“Merlin, I really should just give you my number so you don’t waste my time here. I actually have a job to do, you know.”

Merlin blushes, and thanks the gods that Arthur can’t see it.

“Why, Arthur, are you hitting on me?” he says, and is he really flirting right now? Over the phone? With someone he’s never met?

“N-no! Why would you say that? I was only just—”

“Relax, Arthur. I’m just pulling your leg,” he says.

“Right, then.”

Neither of them speak for a bit.

“Actually, I really need your help. My heater’s been broken for about a month now, and I nee—”

“A month! Merlin, why didn’t you say something earlier! It’s fucking freezing out there!”

“I know! You’ve just gone on insulting me since we first talked so I never had a chance to actually ask for help.”

“Well, you could’ve asked another person for help, you know.”

“Well, I—” but Arthur was right. He could’ve just asked for help with one of the representative that connected his line to Arthur.

“Idiot. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

He explains what’s wrong with the heater with a flush on his cheeks that he can’t explain. He rattles off his address and mobile phone number so someone can come and take a look. 

“I’ll have someone over there by noon tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Arthur. You know, you really are helpful when you’re not busy being a clotpole.”

“There’s no such thing, Merlin.”

“Yes, there is.”

“No, there really isn’t.”

“Yes, the—”

“Describe it, then.”

“In one word?”

“Sure, why not?”

“You.”

He hears Arthur sigh, and he can’t help but feel happy as he hears Arthur’s fond, “You really are and idiot, Merlin.”

“Merlin! Get down here and fix the dishwasher, would you?” he hears Gwen call from the kitchen.

“I’ll be there in a minute, Gwen!”

“Girlfriend?” Arthur says.

Merlin snorts. “Uh, no. Best mate/roommate. I’m spectacularly gay.”

“Well, that’s good to know.”

And Merlin’s heart rate just kicked up 500 notches. “Um, I have to go.”

“Bye, Merlin.”

“Bye.”

He all but runs down the stairs to keep himself busy, ignoring Gwen’s questions of why he’s so red.

***  
Promptly at noon, the doorbell to his flat goes off. He answers the door and comes face to face with a really gorgeous bloke; blond hair, really fit, and sparkling blue eyes with snow on his deep red coat.

He barely manages to get out, “Can I help you?”

The man’s pink lips purse out and form a small frown, but his eyes are full of mischief and excitement. 

“Really, Merlin. I figured you were an idiot, but are you really that stupid that you can’t put two and two together?”

It hits him like a school bus. “Arthur? You’re Arthur?”

“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

“You—you’re…”

“Unbearably good-looking? Oozing greatness?”

Merlin laughs, but a blush tinges his cheeks. “Even a bigger prat in person.”

They laugh and Merlin motions for him to come inside.

“Jesus Lord, you weren’t joking when you said it was cold in here.”

“Um, yeah. I don’t over exaggerate like you do. I bought an electric blanket the other day because it was balls cold at night.”

Arthur turns around and looks him straight in the eye. “What, no warm balls to keep you cozy?”

He chokes on air. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“No, actually. I wouldn’t. It’d make me jealous.”

He was about to ask what he meant by that, but Arthur pushes up Merlin against his door and kisses him. It was really just a peck, but the way Merlin’s prick jerks up at the contact, you’d think Arthur just reached inside his jeans. 

Arthur pulls back when he feels Merlin’s erection against his thigh, eyebrows climbing high, but his light blue eyes darken to a deep turquoise.

He smirks as his lips find Merlin’s neck, slowly licking a trail up to his ear. He bites his lobe, and Merlin shivers violently. “Are you cold, Merlin?”

He swallows, and soon after, Arthur is biting at his Adam’s apple and licking up another wet trail to his chin, kissing his face till he finds his lips again. He kisses softly again, just once. He pulls back and looks at Merlin.

“Do you want me to heat you up?”

Merlin can’t help but laugh, both out of nervousness and because that was the cheesiest pick up line he’s ever heard. 

“Really? That’s the best you can do?”

“What, like you could do better?”

Merlin loves challenges. Really, really loves them. But he’s so bad at pick up lines and picking up men in general (unless he’s spectacularly drunk), so he can’t help but turn Arthur around so he’s against the wall, sticks his leg between Arthur’s and rubs down hard, but ruts slowly against his hard prick.

“Oh, I really could. Do you want me to show you?”

Arthur swallows hard. “Fuck,” he says breathlessly.

“Mmm. Not yet. I really think I should do a background check before I let some random stranger into my flat,” he says as he trails his hands down Arthur’s front. They stop at the bulge in his jeans, and he squeezes hard.

Arthur stares at him, laugh stuck between his lips and eyes going soft from arousal. “That’s really not that much better, Merlin.”

“Oh, I’m not done yet. I’ve been told that I have a mouth on me.”

“Care to show me?”

“Only if you show me yours.”

***  
Gwen walks in about three hours later, and immediately starts sweating in her winter coat. Looks like the heater’s fixed, she thinks as she eyes the shoes in the front entrance. She toes of her shoes and walks into the flat, heading up the stairs to say thank you to Merlin. What she finds instead of him watching Netflix is him curled up to a body with blond hair peeking out from underneath the covers. And they’re both naked.

She smiles to herself as she pats herself on the back. She called it the moment Merlin hung up the phone the second time after speaking with Arthur.

She shuts the door, but vows to torture them both later on. She puts the tea on the kettle and starts making dinner for three.

***  
The smell of lasagna courses through his room, but he can’t be bothered to get up from his bed. He’s hasn’t been this warm in a month. He turns around in his bed, trying to get comfortable again, when he sees a pair of eyes staring at him. And then he remembers that he had sex with Arthur. Four times. Once against the heater after it was fixed. 

“Hi,” Merlin says.

“You snore.”

“N-no I don’t!”

“It kept me up for a while.”

“Yeah, right. You passed out after the last round. I had to clean up after. And you’re not that light, you know.”

Arthur scoffs. “Are you calling me fat?”

Merlin snuggles against him, not caring if he’s pushing it a little. Judging by how Arthur wraps his arms around him, he figures it’s not unwelcome. “Only in the best way.”

“There’s no such thing as a ‘best way’ to call someone fat, Merlin.”

“No, I suppose not. But you did keep me very warm.”

“Shut up, Merlin.” But he can hear the smile in Arthur’s voice.

He starts to kiss Arthur’s broad chest, hinting towards another round, when Gwen’s voice shocks them both apart. 

“Boys, if you’re up, I wouldn’t mind some help setting the table. I did make dinner, after all.”

Merlin can feel his whole body flush pink as he gets up to put on pants. “Um, that’s Gwen. I guess she knows you’re here.”

“Is that a problem?” Arthur says.

Merlin turns around to face him and he sees Arthur’s eyes downcast, also flushing a beautiful red color. He’s nervous. He crawls onto his bed, holds his face in his hands and kisses Arthur slowly. Merlin licks his bottom lip, causing Arthur to open his mouth all the way, and their tongues glide together, drawing a moan out of Merlin and a gasp out of Arthur.

He pulls away first, resting his forehead on Arthur’s. “It’s not a problem at all.”

He feels Arthur smile into the next kiss, which is just about to get heated again, when Gwen calls out again. 

“Boys, you’ll have plenty of time for that later, I promise. Let’s eat first. I’m fucking starving.”

Merlin pulls away laughing. “We’ll be down in a minute, mum.”

He looks at Arthur, who is going through Merlin’s drawer to find sweatpants big enough to fit him. He pulls them on, and Merlin’s breath catches. It’s been a while since he’s had a boyfriend, but he’s never felt this protective and possessive of anyone before. He walks over to Arthur, grabs his hand as they walk down to the kitchen together.

**Epilogue**

“Hello, Hunith. Merlin told me you love daisies so we brought you some. This idiot here hasn’t been here in months, has he? Look at this mess. Merlin, you really need to take better care of your mother. I’m Arthur, by the way. Merlin’s boyfriend. Aka, the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”

But Arthur’s not even wrong. So Merlin smacks him across the head as they clean up the weeds and leaves from his mother’s headstone and lie back against it while they eat their lunch. 

They’ve been together for just over a year, and it’s the first time since his mother’s death that he’s been to her grave. Merlin feels terrible about it, but has just recently come to terms with it. With a lot of help from Arthur.

“Merlin, get the lunches, would you? I’m sure your mother is parched. It’s hot as fuck out here. Pardon me, Hunith. Hot as balls.”

“That’s really not that much better, Arthur.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

After they finish their sandwiches, Merlin rests his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder and starts to doze off. He’s about to fall asleep when he hears Arthur’s voice, soft and so careful, he has to stop breathing so he could hear what Arthur's saying.

“Thank you, Hunith. For letting him live. He’s the best thing that’s happened to me, too. But I’m sure you already knew that.”

Merlin closes his eyes tight, tears spilling over as he wishes with all his heart to put this moment on hold for as long as he can possibly get it. 

~~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so maybe not even the best story I’ve ever written, but I do hope it’s okay! I did love a couple parts of this, so…yeah. Please let me know what you think, if you like! All kinds of comments are welcome! Thanks for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed it! :D My longer fic should be out within the next couple of weeks!


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